In my copending patent application titled "Tape Operated Semiconductor Device Packaging," Ser. No. 133,040 filed Mar. 24, 1980 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,330,790 issued May 18, 1982, a metal assembly tape is employed to make contact to the semiconductor device and to produce an encapsulated product. The entire process can be run on automatic assembly equipment that operates at high speed. In another of my copending patent applications titled "A Process for Hermetically Encapsulating Semiconductor Devices," Ser. No. 133,053 filed Mar. 24, 1980 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,355,463 issued Oct. 26, 1982, a ceramic housing is applied in an automatic assembly tape process. These applications are both assigned to the assignee of this application and are incorporated herein by reference.
In these prior assembly approaches the semiconductor device or integrated circuit (IC) is thermocompression gang bonded to bumped fingers on a metal assembly tape. The device package is then assembled onto the same tape which also provides the external package leads. These leads are necessarily quite thin and, especially for large lead-count devices, are also relatively narrow. Once the assembled device is removed from the assembly tape, it is quite easy to deform the package leads. Accordingly, it would be desirable to somehow immobilize the leads prior to device mounting in its final location.